BPS Research Digest: Babies prefer Picasso

BPS Research Digest: Babies prefer Picasso

Interesting. Particularly as Thom and I wonder how to decorate the twin's room.  Maybe animals,  but cubist animals.

'Art appreciation psychologists have a difficult job' - the blog begins.  When your sample is a crowd of nine-month-olds, I'd say so!  I want to get hold of the research and find out if the babies cried less when presented with Picasso.  And how they managed feeding and changing for so many.  I'm certainly concerned about how to manage it for just two.  But I suppose that's the difference between my personal and current priorities compared to these researchers.

Their assumption is that if you catch 'em early enough, cultural and social influences won't have had time to get in the way, and they might be able to establish what is most naturally appealing to the human eye. They showed the babies Picasso and Monet, and even though babies got on ok with Monet, they all preferred Picasso, which was interpreted as evidence that something about Picasso is more attractive.  Sounds plausible and their endeavour might possibly be useful. There are some considerations to be made about the abilities of a baby's perceptual system and it could be that Picasso's style was simply easier for babies to take in.

Although, once again, as a psychologist, I feel just a slight pang of guilt for the rest of humanity as psychology attempts to explain away just a little more of the magic of existence. For me, to define the most universally appealing elements of art robs us all of essence of art. Artists already use principles that have been shown to be appealing to the eye, for example using odd numbers or forms that draw the eye from one end of a painting to the other. But great art has also been defined by breaking the rules. Picasso was criticised for the lack of correlation between his cubist creations and real life, something thought of as a little ridiculous at the time.  Like other the rebels of the art world, Picasso was not enjoyed immediately. Maybe babies would have preferred it to other artwork of the day because of its innately appealing elements, but that doesn't really define what draws us to art.

Amazing things happen in art when it's not what we expect. The art we love is sometimes beautiful in form, shape and colour. Other times we are drawn to what seems unexpected, counter-intuitive or strange. The wonder of art can be two people gazing at the same thing and experiencing it in totally different ways (as I write, my husband interjects that he thinks 'Picasso is s***'). Will babies unlock the mystery of what makes art appealing? I doubt it. Because even if researchers continue to demonstrate infants' attraction to certain art over others, it misses the point. Art transforms us, transports us, touches us.  Art can be defined as a kind of communication, impossible to divorce form culture and society.  Far more complex and spiritual than can be summed up by attractive arrangements of shape and colour, eye-catching to baby, thought they might be.

Then again, maybe babies have good taste, and would have known Picasso was good even when the rest of the world told him to go back to drawing board. In any case, I like Picasso (maybe my perceptual systems are immature) so it's good news as I contemplate how to decorate a baby's room without clearly pigeon-holing it as a boy's or girl's room.  I'm already pleased that the twins will probably have such good taste.  The three of us will just have to convince Thom.  Or at least out-vote him on the décor.

click to view Matters Over Mind - my psychology-focused blog